Hedgerow Jottings: Grey Turns to Blue

Sunset

Hi everyone – Carl here.

In these uncertain times (Linda interrupts – Carl,no political ranting please – we are not that kind of blog), I thought I'd give Linda "a day off" from the jottings. No, no, please give me a chance and at least read the first couple of paragraphs before you give it up as a bad job.

Summery afternoon

We've had a lot of extra weather this week; wind, hail, rain that was wetter than usual, thunder that was louder than the exploding garden (more of that later), hot sun, dull sun, no sun at all and so on. To be blunt, a typical late spring week. This week we have travelled from just above Derwent lock, Shardlow to the other side of Rugeley. After Derwent lock there are five more broad locks to negotiate before the first of the narrow locks at Dallow Lane (Burton on Trent). After the huge river locks on the Soar and Trent, and the five broad locks on the Trent and Mersey canal, it's quite a novelty to pass through narrow locks again. Linda usually operates the locks, while I stand at the tiller, taking it easy. The few times I work the locks does, I have to admit, tend to slow us down a bit. Hmm. (Linda again - each to their own Captain Carl, you're much better at steering, you don't leave several coats of paint on the lock gates!)

Coming up Swarkestone Lock

We tend to listen to the radio a lot while we are out on our boat, or rather we used to. Years ago, Radio 2 was our station of choice. Sadly, those days are coming to an end. Radio 2 now seems to be a constant replay of endless trailers for "The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show", "The Sara Cox Drivetime Show" and "Rylan on Saturday". The stuff they play between these annoyances has become a relentless dirge, an ear-bullying mishmash of drippy, bland singers that all drone on with their own versions of the same song, some renditions made even worse by irritating, jerky drum rhythms. And many of them finish too long after the end. The rap "music" (spelt with a silent "C") that is being edged in through the back door, is just another pound of nails in the coffin. "Serious Jockin' (with no G)" adds insult to audio injury. Thankfully, we've discovered Bubblegum and Cheese on BBC Radio Solent (9 til 12 Saturday mornings). The records on this show are mostly from the fifties, sixties and seventies, that golden age of popular music, and are astonishingly wonderful and joyous. Perfect for this boating life. (Interruption from Linda – change the record Carl!)

Rainbow

Our moorings each night have, with two exceptions, been very quiet and pleasant. Exception number one was on Thursday night at eleven thirty when we, and a lot of others I would think, were suddenly shocked into wakefulness by some berk deciding to set off a load of fireworks. It sounded like World War 3 had started. Exception number two was yesterday, Saturday. We had moored at Handsacre, a couple of miles from Rugeley, in what we thought was an ideal spot. Unfortunately for us, we didn't realise that some Jeremy Kyle type guests lived in one of the houses opposite us. As the afternoon wore on, the sound of shouting, swearing and inane shrieks of manic laughter emanated from this house. Interspersed with this was someone, possibly the "alpha male", yelling at the top of his voice, the most appalling expletives. We were just deciding to move the boat when their garden exploded. The idiot who'd been yelling and swearing had tried to start a barbeque using petrol or gunpowder. The whole lot went up like an atom bomb. By one of those strange flukes, no one seemed to be hurt, and the whole lot of them started whooping, cheering and swearing a lot. With that we untied the boat and moved her to somewhere quieter.

We do see a lot of wildlife from this boat. Early on Wednesday morning we enjoyed the antics of a squirrel running up and down the towpath, which was also being watched by a young rabbit, sitting only a few yards away. I remember a few years ago, in an early dawn, we stood silently, watching a stoat dancing and jumping about near our mooring on the South Oxford canal. I've never seen anything like that before or since. As we left Burton Upon Trent, we saw a turtle/terrapin sunning itself and Linda clicked the shutter quickly before it could dive . Then, last night as I put the dog out for her late night ablutions, I spotted a young toad near the boat, busy making plans for the building of his hall. Thankfully, Tricky didn't see it and walked nonchalantly off and wandered around for a few minutes until she found a toilet shaped clump of grass. Then there was a repeat of this procedure while I took the shovel for a walk, "just in case". We strolled back to the boat and Tricky sat down on the tow-path gazing at nothing in particular, while the toad watched. Eventually, she noticed the toad but was totally unfazed, she yawned sleepily, clambered back onboard, and prepared herself for her main sleep.

Turtle or Terrapin?

For some time now our boat has needed her name re-writing. This week we bit the bullet and arranged for a sign writer to redo both panels next month. The panels need to be prepared first, which is why I bought yet another tin of paint on Friday. Much sanding down of one of the panels has followed, and by Saturday I had applied the undercoat. Early yesterday afternoon I masked the coach lines again ready for another painting session. I opened the tin of light grey gloss, and found myself looking at a can of bright blue paint. I shut my eyes and re-opened them, but the paint was still blue. I thought maybe the paint needed lots of vigorous stirring, but it remained blue. I wondered if it started out blue and dried grey, but no, it stubbornly refused to be anything other than blue. While I was thinking "oh dear", and searching for an unopened tin of Atlantic Grey paint that came with the boat ten or eleven years ago that may or may not be any good, Linda contacted the place we'd bought it from. The latest on that is that they will get the manufacturers to get a replacement to us. Fingers crossed then. (Linda again – I'm expecting that the paint will come by drone, now wouldn't that be something to write about!)

Looks like smurf paint to me!

That's all from us for this week

Love from

The Floating Chandlers

ps Linda here - had a lovely day out with my Mum and sister Jenny at Easton Gardens. Loved that my Mum managed a go on the tree swing - not bad for 88 years old (Sorry Mum, did I give the game away? - cheeky face emoji)